The constructed languages have provided a paradigm, if not a
realisation, as the strengthening bonds and links between the whole
of humanity - whether forged through religion, science, commerce,
tourism, sport, the media or in any other way - have increasingly
exposed the expense and inefficiency of speaking about common purposes
with a multitude of tongues.

But strong opposition to the concept of an international
auxiliary language remains, in spite of this powerful testimony.
Militant nationalists naturally anathematise the idea - and would
proscribe any viable language in the same way that the Nazis
banned the teaching of Esperanto in 1935. Such may well have had
their day, but opposition is still likely from moderate
nationalists who may well be concerned that the international
auxiliary will imperceptibly suppress and eventually extinguish
their treasured national tongues.

However, unless the constructors of the international auxiliary
choose to learn nothing from history, they will refrain from
repeating the mistakes of the past. For every tongue forced into
silence later shouts out twice as loudly. Basque is but one
prominent example. Every minority language has reacted in the
same way to the extent that attempts have been made to extirpate
it. But within other minority ethnic groups, which have not been
linguistically oppressed, there is an even stronger appreciation of
the educational, economic or political advantages of belonging to
a wider speech-community. This is the dynamic, two-way but
unequal, which is allowing many of the minority ethnic tongues to
be absorbed by creoles; or by the great "national" languages.

But although most of the speakers of these tongues are persuaded
that they are willingly abandoning old-fashioned and limited
languages, with which the desire to remain is essentially
retrogressive and nostalgic, the alternative viewpoint, which
insists that neither the creoles nor the national languages can
adequately represent the phonology or vocabulary of the speech
that is lost, is still a force to be reckoned with. Emboldened by
the long-term political trend towards global subsidiarity, which
is encouraging former regions to express an historic "national"
identity, this ideological position argues that, since minority
languages were formerly obscured by foreign rulers who were
hostile to any tongues which might rival their own, the original
tongues should therefore be reinstated and restored
as symbols and vehicles of cultural independence.

This interpretation appears to be becoming the fashionable orthodoxy. For
example, a report in the "Times" (1/5/96) which mentioned the revival of
the Manx language and culture in passing, began with the apocryphal
sentence: "A hundred years ago, any child who dared to speak Manx Gaelic in
the school playgrounds of the Isle of Man would have a noose tied round
their neck." No attempt was made to disabuse the uninformed reader of the
implication that it was through political and linguistic oppression, rather
than with parental approval, that the Manx language was killed off.

The phenomenon of minority ethnic languages is extremely complex because
two separate issues are involved. One is the essentially political view
that a major national language such as English, French or Russian, cannot
express sentimental attachment to a distinct geographical area with a
unique history; or, at least, it cannot when compared with a minority
ethnic tongue which has evolved in the place for centuries and supports a
personal sense of identity.

The other is a subtler argument, which is essentially linguistic, but also
cultural in the patriotic sense of diversity within the body of nations.
This asserts that, since any national language, however large the area it
may represent, is by definition less than universal in scope, it cannot do
full justice to the speech and thought of an area with a different outlook,
sense of history, and cultural and religious experience, as expressed
through language.

The minority language phenomenon has become one of those issues, like
atmospheric pollution or disputed borders, which require a solution beyond
the national level: for since the decline of religion as a metacultural bond,
the connection between language and politics has been emphasised to the
extent that it has become very difficult to hold together a modern nation
formed out of old language groups - as Belgium, Canada, and many recent
ex-colonies have found. These countries have also demonstrated that
bilingualism (or multilingualism), however necessary in practice, is highly
unsatisfactory and expensive - and is not a proper solution anyway since
everyone always prefers one tongue to another.

The concept of an international auxiliary language addresses the minority
language (or multilingual) problem from both the political and the
linguistic standpoints. Those nations choosing to be an integral part of
the civilised world could retain their mother-tongues for domestic purposes
while employing the designated "neutral" international language for all
communications outside of the indigenous culture. Every child would learn
this specified auxiliary language at school as well as the mother-tongue.
Thus it would no longer be necessary for everyone dealing with the wider
world to waste time and resources learning several languages; nobody would
need to learn more than two.

But this is not the end of the story: such an arrangement would have
inexorable linguistic repercussions. The nations of the world are becoming
more and more interdependent every day; the notion of self-sufficient or
autonomous entities communicating indefinitely on a second-hand basis is no
longer credible. Although everyone might learn two languages at school for
decades or centuries to come, it is inconceivable that the auxiliary would
not take on a life of its own - as a result of authors, advertisers,
film-makers etc. writing in it directly to access the global market.

Assuming this came to pass, the relationship between the international
auxiliary language and every national tongue would be comparable to that
which presently exists, or has existed, between the minority ethnic tongues
and the great national languages which entirely surround them. Thus, even
as islands of minority ethnic tongues have been surrounded by a sea of
English, every language would eventually find itself within the matrix of
the international auxiliary language. And correspondingly, even as English
has diluted and absorbed minority ethnic tongues in its midst, it would
itself be absorbed, along with all other languages, into one universal
tongue of enormous capacity and subtlety.

The history of the dogged survival of certain minority ethnic tongues
clearly shows that such a process would never be achieved by force, rather
would it happen for cultural and economic reasons. Thus, if speakers and
writers were to deliberately use the international auxiliary language to
reach the widest possible audience or readership, and listeners were to
learn it - and tune into it - to keep up with the latest news and newest
thought from anywhere in the world, there is little doubt that this common
language would develop its own character as a truly global tongue, even as
primary creative impetus went into it. If this did indeed happen - whether
through neologism, transliteration, or other aspects of linguistic
development - the national languages of the world could be expected to
successively abandon their separate identities, over a period of centuries,
in order to become part of it: in the same way that some minority ethnic
tongues have hitherto become submerged in national languages.

Thus there is no reason to suppose that an international auxiliary
consciously developed for creative usage would not gradually obtain the
linguistic and euphonic capacity to incorporate all useful features,
whether structural or decorative, from both "national" and constructed
languages. Indeed, it might well display these assets more precisely and
harmoniously than their own more or less irregular grammars, partial
phonologies and ramshackle orthographies. In such a scenario the
mother-tongues would continue to be preserved in written and recorded
form, but ultimately for sentimental value rather than linguistic
information.